Episode 5: HAIR, Spain

Upon landing in Madrid some of us went to the office of Spanish Equity. We had already paid dues to join. I complained that we were being made to do 10 shows a week. The Equity representative responded by saying we were lucky. The rules allowed the producers to have us do 12 shows  a week so we should be glad. This meant we’d continue as we had been: 4 nights a week of 2 shows and 2 nights a week of 1 show. Though it was a punishing schedule, we shut-up about it and left the union office. I didn’t miss a show for 11 months and 3 weeks. Even when I sprained my ankle real bad, I sang from the top of our tower and didn’t come down till the end of the show.

Early November I made a panicky trip to the American Embassy thinking I would preemptively put my name on a list for an eventual airlift to safety when Franco actually died, which could have been any day. I told the woman at the Embassy that I was an American citizen traveling and working here making a point to ask what I should do when the inevitable riots began. She told me that whatever I chose to do was up to me. They had no escape plan for anyone but the diplomats, should it come to that. I would be on my own. Before I could pick my chin up off the floor she handed me a form and said “don’t forget to pay your taxes on the money you earn here”. Yeah, hey. Fat chance!

Waiting for us in Madrid was Nick, a tall skinny drink of water from South Africa, hired to be musical director. One of Our company members knew him from Germany and obviously had a crush on him. It was great to be so thoroughly rehearsed and to hear the full beauty of the songs with the help of his musical coaching. We learned the actual vocal harmonies and ended up with a solid beautiful ensemble sound. Along with the new pianist and a new trumpet player we finally got to hear the band at their best. They were mostly from Brazil and the drums and percussion were mesmerizing. They made the Be-In the most exciting I had ever heard with talking drums, congas, and those big gourds with the rattly sea-shell covering. The whole show  had a sound like no other production, really rockin’ and so sexy. So we rehearsed and opened at the Teatro Monumental en Atocha (the instructions for the cab drivers to get us to work each night). The theater was not the oldest or the worst in fact, it was very hospitable, door-man and all. It held over 2,000 and they were hanging from the rafters on opening night.

Before my group got to Spain, the company was together after many months in Africa, Rhodesia, and Lesoto. Touring companies of Hair were always picking up people along the way: new cast members, new lovers, and hangers-on. This included Lorraine a big Rhodesian soap-opera star who couldn’t take a salary cut and get out of there fast enough. We still had Tony (Psycho) playing The Tourist Lady, he had a way of doing things no one expected and often could not deal with onstage. I think I was expected to push him down a flight of stairs as no one liked him and I was his understudy or as it turned out, his replacement. Finally one night bad oysters did the job for me. I last heard him loudly puking his guts out before we got to Madrid. He left us his better half, his wife Theresa. Most of the cast was English and many had been in the West End production of Hair a few years earlier. There were a few spouses and a few who switched mates regularly.

Our drummer was a Rod Stewart look-alike and Englishman named Danny who had his wife with him. She was a Croupier in a London Casino and always wore the flashiest, noisiest jewelry. She taught us a lot of time-consuming card games for those quiet hotel nights.

The trumpet player was Goldie-Goldfish because he seemed to glow like gold as he was a ginger-haired red-faced man with a great many bad habits. They never kept him from playing  no matter what state he was in when he started the show. That all changed when he fell asleep one night and caught the bed on fire. His hand blistered so bad he had to leave and get medical help in England.

The sort of leader of the musicians (til Nick arrived) was Joañ he was the guitar player and I tried to buddy-up to him early on as he was the reason “What a Piece of Work is Man” always sounded so beautiful. His playing coupled with Cathy and me singing worked well. He was Lorraine’s main squeeze.

Whenever I did a show with music I made a point of being friendly with the musicians and the sound person and if there was one, and the spot-light operator. These are people you never offend or you’ll be left in the dark or in the wrong key and/or in silence.

This was no problem as the band we had was a lot of fun and Douggie was just so lovable it came easy. Doug was the sound man, a Scottsman who I stayed friends with and still get cards and email from. After Hair he was on tour with Nana Massoukouri for a few years and always invited the Zanfini’s and myself to come hear her. She had won the Euro Song-Fest and was like a national hero of Greece. She looked a little like a shy secretary type with big glasses straight hair and very conservative dress. However, she sang like an angel in a dozen languages. I loved meeting her and with Doug and the costume lady friend of his I escorted her to a big birthday party that a famous restauranteur threw in her honor. Her audience was all different sized replicas of her. Avery Fisher Hall with 800 Nana clones in different sizes and shapes, huge glasses, straight brown hair and all!

Before opening in Madrid and only a few months into our stay in Spain we had already grown tired of being monitored and spied-on by someone in the company who would go to Occhi (Our producer) and tattle.  Occhi would then come to us like some happy babysitter and bark orders: “don’t do this”, “don’t do that”.

Come opening night I’m getting my flowers together to head into the audience to look for a husband or a date at least when in comes Occhi and about ten soldiers armed with machine guns. WOW!!!!

Tanks and armed soldiers were on every street corner near the theater because it was near the Prado and the Royal Residence and tension hung heavy in the air. Occhi and the Guardia Seville came in to squash our rebellion, machine guns drawn. They marched us into the wings and started in about this strike and who was doing it and why and didn’t we know better etc. It was a scary few minutes. We acted like we knew nothing and after a lot of yelling and pants wetting moments, the soldiers left.

We only had Monday nights off and usually some of us went bowling. On one of these drunken excursions I met a fun group of Mexican and Spanish kids who said they’d came to find us because they wanted to meet me. I kid you not ME! They were like my own gaggle of groupies following the lead of the cutest boy who also spoke the most English. He had convinced the others that they had to get to know me. He wanted me to come share their apartment and actually wooed me with promises of veal cutlets nightly. They came through on that promise and I had a very fun time living in their place. They never let me pay for anything, but a little bit for rent and this was a large place. The boys families paid for them to live in Madrid and stay out of Mexico. Two of the boys were targeted for robbing and beating and wanted by local Mexican thugs and police. The deciding factor for their leaving was their being tied up and beaten and all their belongings put in their car and driven away. This by the police mind you and so the parents sent them away shortly after. One boy’s father was a tv director his Godfather was the Mexican actor Cantinflas. The other was just a rich kid. They loved me and were constantly coming to the show.

We shared their 11-bedroom, 3-bathroom, 4-terraced apartment in Madrid. They gave a giant party for me when we had set a departing date. The place was jumping and they had even invited one of those bands of strolling guitar and mandolin playing troubadours. They were just beautiful all in black velvet with capes and ribbons hanging everywhere. I sometime see bands like them strolling around New York playing at outdoor restaurants in the summer and I’m always brought back to that wonderful party and these great people.

On Monday’s, there would be other acts on stage before us or sometimes instead of us.  On one of these Monday nights off we were lucky enough to see the fantastic Blue Oyster Cult on our stage. Yet another Monday, there was a Gypsy Night, a Night in Andalusia on our stage, we were told we could attend and gave our names and got great seats. The crowd was frenetic and so loud we could hear them before turning the corner to the front door of the theater. Inside it was even louder and so very colorful. I had never, even at a crowded Be-In or tripping on acid, seen such bright floral outfits. Men with slicked back hair in 3 piece suits of chartreuse, aqua, pink, and orange, all with matching hats and loud heeled shoes, walking sticks and capes  thrown over their shoulders. The women, resplendent in the long ruffled skirts of the Flamenco Dancer/Gypsy they also wore flashy rainbows outfits, elaborate combs with mantillas and flowers in their hair. Fringed shawls, beautiful fans, polka dots and lace. No color found anywhere in nature. Now, as a cast of performers making a group appearance we Hair folks were known to turn it out, but we were black and white while these people were in color.

The first part of the show was duets and trios and small groups and solos. All with that unearthly wailing Flamenco sound and guitars and dancing and castanets and all. It just absolutely went through us,  nailed us to our seats. It was a long first act with much rhythmical hand-clapping and OLE shouting. At intermission, none of us could move from the spectacle we had witnessed.

The second part of the show started out tables and chairs and all the performers from the first part took seats and brought out glasses and bottle after bottle of liquor and wine and champagne were lined up on every table.It was a challenge and response,song and dance,dance and guitar spectacle like nothing I had ever seen. The audience hooted and hollered and clapped and rattled their tambourines and drummed their chattering castanets. They banged on chairs and stomped their feet. It drew everyone into the action. A person or group would sing and dance and be challenged to greater heights and then they’d all take a slug from a bottle. They’d stopped using glasses early on and went directly to the bottle.This went on for a long time. It was hot inside and people were out of their seats and standing by the edge of the stage encouraging them and more booze and more singing and more shots and shouts and dancing in the aisles.

Everyone on stage and in the audience was totally loaded. Wine was passing around with giant hash joints and we were one with the performers. More and more people appeared on stage and it was a frenzy of passion, all flying feet and guitars and castanets. At one point several of the dancers drunkenly jumped up on a table and it collapsed sending singers and dancers and bottles flying everywhere. To our surprise one of them ran offstage and returned with our prop American flag and began mopping the mess up with it. Everything got really tense as the audience cheered this act that was so aggressive, so very loud and mean-spirited that I got very paranoid and wanted to go. The audience around us had already talked with some of us and knew who we were and I began to feel like we could be next. We beat a hasty retreat.

My birthday was approaching and I had been sent a care package of several hits of acid. So November 20, 1975, I arrived at work, my usual hour early to warm-up and line-up my shots of cognac and choco-milk and on this my birthday night a special dose of acid.  I shared the love so a few of us were walking in space before the show even started. I kept to my nightly routine lining up my 5 Cognac shots and chocolate soda. I gathered my flowers and went out into the house looking for a birthday date. Sadly, no luck.

When the music cue to start ‘slow-motion’ began we would all turn and start for the stage moving very slowly towards the Aquarius Circle beginning to form. My schtick was to walk on the arm-rests over the audiences’ heads. Most nights people would look up and giggle or reach up and help me get over and once in a while somebody had to be smart-assed and  grab my balls thinking it was THE funniest thing ever. If it was a man (98% of the time) I’d step on their crotch to get free but the few women who did it were disinclined to let me loose and they had finger-nails too.

Act I was just so much fun singing and dancing and I was having a high old time. My Tourist Lady went off without a hitch and come intermission I had my acid booster and 5 more shots and soda and we started Act II. Well, while I was singing Electric Blues I had a second wave of acid hit me and during Walking in Space someone came over to me sitting alone in an upstage pool of colored light and asked what was I doing. I asked why and was told I could be heard ooh’ing and ahh’ing at the light changes and why wasn’t I getting ready to climb into the tower for What A Piece of Work. That brought me back and the show eventually ended like always; big sad ending,Claude dead Let The Sun Shine In, singing and dancing with the audience. Me singing Johnny Be Good and then out we went. Dinner and dancing at Boccacio Disco and later home via the all-night Le Drugstore. But something really odd was happening. As I walked home through this place usually teeming with peopIe and music and activity I could hear the sound of those garage doors coming down putting the different stores to bed. This was a 24/7 place and it never closed but here it was shutting down. I was beginning to get worried, no music no crowds no hub-bub even at 6 a.m. Was it me? You could hear an echo in the empty place. I continued on to the Pensione. They had a quaint way of calling the nighttime door man-by clapping your hands and he would come running, no matter the time. I went inside to find everyone awake and watching TV???? Well, Franco was finally and officially dead. No joke, no lie, and on my 28th Birthday. It was a date I would never forget: November 20, 1975.

After watching some of this on TV I decided to knock-back more acid and get back outside. I remember seeing lines of people forming in every street 6-8-10 people deep converging at Plaza del Sol forming one line heading up to the church to see the body lying in state. They were a mix of sad and happy. Some tears but mostly celebration and laughter and sharing wine and hash smell everywhere. The next day we watched the telecast of the crowds inside viewing the body, they wanted to make sure he really was gone. Old folks who knew his iron fist from the war, ex-soldiers crying and wailing, many took the medals off their chests and laid them near his body, husbands and wives comforting each other supporting each other crying out the door. Young people who had known only Franco their entire lives. Young families with small children wanting to be a part of this moment in history.

Every street leading to Plaza del Sol was thick with people slowly moving along. At the Plaza I went underground to the toilets and beheld the unbelievable. Many out in the open sexual couplings, blow-jobs, sucking, fucking, random touching all visible with cops and Guarde de Seville and soldiers everywhere. No one stopping anyone from doing anything. I couldn’t believe what I saw and no, I was not still hallucinating.

An estimated 12 million people saw Franco’s body in those 3 days. Which meant that at this time, fully 1/3 of Spain’s population came through Madrid. A truly awesome thought. All the guns had been put away and there was a general uplifting of spirits. The atmosphere was that of a party, a 3 day party, a 70 hour acid trip, a 40 year reign ended at last.

We were scheduled to leave for Seville for Christmas and New Years, but we were warned that in a few days there would be a trucker strike, trucks would be burned and drivers would be shot so we couldn’t risk leaving. We extended the show several times and eventually made it down to Southern Spain’s Gypsy region to Seville, beautiful Moorish palaces, colorful tiles and design elements from the Arab occupation of hundreds of years ago.

Meanwhile we had to find a way to celebrate Thanksgiving. Soldiers from the army base outside Madrid had become friendly with us and promised a turkey and all the fixins’ if we came out and did the cooking, so a bunch of us went. I think they just wanted to bang the girls because once we got there they evaporated along with all thought of food. After about 30 hours of pleading for a lift back to town I just went out and hitched back. That was that.

Since we were meant to be in Seville, nothing was made of Christmas, at least I don’t remember if it was. Then came the big New Years’ Eve show. New Years was a major event in Spain with a load of traditions and we were told they’d all be in evidence this evening. Of course no one told us what to expect so we got to intermission and were told we’d be holding for something special. The house was once again full to overflowing, but this time with teens. Every one of which had been given a bag with a tape of the show (not us) a split of champagne, a dozen grapes, noise-makers, paper hats, streamers, and confetti. The kids had also brought their own pot and hash and it was one of a very few times I smelled it outside my hotel room. They tried to time the pause for the stroke of midnight, but not succeeding in that meant we had to entertain them for nearly an hour and at this point they had all had their free champagne and were loud and sloppy. As the midnight hour struck they didn’t count down, they rang a bell and we had to eat a grape per stroke or it meant bad luck for the year to come. The cast was given grapes too and I for one couldn’t eat them fast enough, the midnight bells were swift, and I barely got the grapes down.

This ordeal ended and we went into Act II. When Good Morning Starshine began we started down the stairs at the front of the stage to engage them in hand-clapping and singing along, as per usual-Gliddy Glop Gloopy etc. The floor was knee deep in streamers and when the first one down the stairs reached the floor they skidded and slid on the vomit hiding under the pretty colored streamers.I saw this and decided to stay on the stage. Pretty gross.

Sometime before we finally left for Seville, someone talked Occhi into joining me for My Conviction by playing Hubert to my Margaret Meade (it might have been me did the persuading). He was convinced he’d be very funny and he wanted to see what all the fuss was about. So they dressed him up in an old suit and I dragged him into the back of the house and on cue we made our noise and disrupted the show. We got up on stage and carried on with asking the Hippies, “Why?? Why the hair? Why the dirty clothes?” which led to the title song Hair.